The House Judiciary Committee approved a controversial prison reform bill by a 25-5 vote on Wednesday (May 9) that has been widely criticized by several civil rights groups.

Called the First Step Act, the bill was touted as a push for prison program funding to reduce recidivism rates, The Hill reported. The measure allows the Bureau of Prisons to spend $50 million a year for five years on education and job training programs. However, the measure feels half-baked and wrong for several reasons, including its exclusion of guidelines for jail sentencing reform.

Many activists have pointed out that harsh mandatory-minimum sentences have long contributed to mass incarceration, which has targeted people of color for decades and been tied to the War on Drugs. Without language that speaks to reducing jail sentences for low-level offenders, the bill falls flat, opponents said.

“Momentum for sentencing reform is being derailed by a Trump Administration effort that is misguided, ideological, and outdated,” former Attorney General Eric Holder said in a release. “This narrow ‘prison reform’ bill won’t deliver the transformative change we need. The only way to achieve that is by passing strong, bipartisan, comprehensive sentencing reform.”

The newly revamped bipartisan prison reform bill has passed the House Judiciary Committee and will head to the House floor. https://t.co/DW8K5E0Wra

The NAACP, ACLU, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and other groups have opposed the measure, which is also problematic given Attorney General Jeff Sessions‘ public fight against sentencing reform.

It’s no secret that the Trump administration has rolled back several Obama-era regulations, including ones pertaining to helping to end mass incarceration. Officials have pushed law-and-order politics, making it hard to fathom that the White House would support any bill for meaningful reform of the nation’s broken criminal justice system.

Also, the bill left out Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee‘s proposal for a federal prison pilot program that would allow female inmates who give birth to live with their child in a prison housing unit for up to two-and-a-half years, The Hill reported.

The bill must be changed into a comprehensive criminal justice reform measure that includes needed changes to fix the country’s deeply flawed criminal justice system, activists have said. The question is if this administration will ever truly take up this fight—yet it is a question that has already prompted a response of “no” from many across the nation.

22. Scenes From The Demonstration Against Racism At Starbucks

The protest is growing outside the @Starbucks. The woman on the right in the red shirt is 90 years old and told a story about her father who died when she was 9 as a result of racial profiling and police brutality. pic.twitter.com/DxQb5OYtSG

Activists Protest Racial Profiling, Arrests Of Black People In Starbucks

Black Lives Matter activists called for a boycott of the Starbucks coffee chain just days after an employee called the police to arrest two Black men inside a Philadelphia location were not buying anything and wouldn't leave. Despite a number of factors that should have convinced police to show discretion and restraint -- the men were not armed; they were not violent; they did not resist arrest; the White man who they were meeting yelled at the police that the men did nothing wrong; a bystander filmed the entire episode on video -- then men were still taken into custody Thursday.
The video has since gone viral.
https://twitter.com/missydepino/status/984539713016094721
The first of what is expected to be many protests took place April 14 at the Starbucks location in question.